Sometimes, if you keep eating something regularly for a long time, it starts tasting better. I don’t know if it is just a power of habit (familiarity feels pleasant) or whether your brain gradually redefines “food” to mean the things you eat most often (so your desire to eat becomes a desire to eat a set of specific things).
As an experiment, start adding one fresh tomato (cut to pieces) to every meal you eat. (OK, not literally every meal; I wouldn’t eat a tomato with a sweet pancake. But if something contains meat, it can contain a tomato, too.) Do it for three months and observe what happens.
If tomato does not work for you, experiment with other vegetables, find one (or a small set) which works for you, and then use it consistently. And always have enough of them at home. Remember that every successful diet starts in a shop. (If you don’t buy them, you cannot eat them.)
As shminux recommends, spices and dressings are your friends. The goal is to make yourself eat vegetables, not torture yourself with something you don’t like. But if it works, you may gradually need less of these ingredients.
I think that the nutritional value of the food, or at least the perceived nutritional value of the food, also plays a role in how quickly you start liking it. I’ve started liking raw beef liver and fish oil after waaaay fewer tries than say, ceviche.
I agree with this. I’ve read somewhere (source needed) that it takes babies about 10-15 tastings to get to grips with a new, unfamiliar flavour, and I’d imagine the same principle applies for adults.
More anecdotally, both my father and my OH started off really strongly disliking the flavour of coriander in their teens, then grew to really like it after they’ve tasted it in a variety of contexts. My father also had this with yoghurt, and I myself with goats’ cheese.
In fact, I’d suggest you start with more variety than just one vegetable, since if you attack on all bases simultaneously, statistically speaking you’re going to start liking one of them faster!#
Edit: only source for my claim that I could find which cites a study is here. The study also suggests that babies learn to like a food faster if it comes paired with something they already like, which gives evidence to some the other suggestions mentioned.
Sometimes, if you keep eating something regularly for a long time, it starts tasting better. I don’t know if it is just a power of habit (familiarity feels pleasant) or whether your brain gradually redefines “food” to mean the things you eat most often (so your desire to eat becomes a desire to eat a set of specific things).
As an experiment, start adding one fresh tomato (cut to pieces) to every meal you eat. (OK, not literally every meal; I wouldn’t eat a tomato with a sweet pancake. But if something contains meat, it can contain a tomato, too.) Do it for three months and observe what happens.
If tomato does not work for you, experiment with other vegetables, find one (or a small set) which works for you, and then use it consistently. And always have enough of them at home. Remember that every successful diet starts in a shop. (If you don’t buy them, you cannot eat them.)
As shminux recommends, spices and dressings are your friends. The goal is to make yourself eat vegetables, not torture yourself with something you don’t like. But if it works, you may gradually need less of these ingredients.
Data point: This one worked for me, some time back.
I think that the nutritional value of the food, or at least the perceived nutritional value of the food, also plays a role in how quickly you start liking it. I’ve started liking raw beef liver and fish oil after waaaay fewer tries than say, ceviche.
Is the rawness of the liver motivated by nutritional or gustative reasons? How do you prepare it?
I agree with this. I’ve read somewhere (source needed) that it takes babies about 10-15 tastings to get to grips with a new, unfamiliar flavour, and I’d imagine the same principle applies for adults.
More anecdotally, both my father and my OH started off really strongly disliking the flavour of coriander in their teens, then grew to really like it after they’ve tasted it in a variety of contexts. My father also had this with yoghurt, and I myself with goats’ cheese.
In fact, I’d suggest you start with more variety than just one vegetable, since if you attack on all bases simultaneously, statistically speaking you’re going to start liking one of them faster!#
Edit: only source for my claim that I could find which cites a study is here. The study also suggests that babies learn to like a food faster if it comes paired with something they already like, which gives evidence to some the other suggestions mentioned.